My culinary skills !?!

Iam sure my husband will scream aloud that there is no such word as 'culinary skill' in my vocabulary.
But as long are there are food blogs and google, I can still cook. (ok!.. attempt to cook).

I still remember my first 'upuma'.
All you experts out there know that the rava/semolina needs to be dry roasted before you can make something out of it. I learnt it the hard way.. Infact, it was my dad who endured the hardest part as he had to gulp down glasses of water to get my rava upuma leave the walls of his mouth and get into his throat.
As you would guess, my parents didnt mention cooking to me for a long time after that and it was for their own good sake.
And as long as I was with my parents at Chennai, it dint matter to me either. My food was always served hot and yumm.

I then got transplanted to Bangalore. To a hostel ... hmmm.. I have such lovely, funny memories of that, which I would blog soon on. The food there was reassuring as I realised that you could cook bad and still have 200 girls eat it.
I have no grudges though as I still owe my slimmest waist to my hostel days.

When we had to move over to a rented house, my sister was the life-saver, who infact saved her life by keeping me off the kitchen and taking care of the cooking.

Iam married now. Yes.. I had the guts to get married into a joint family with almost nil knowledge of cooking.

But there... I got transformed..
From learning how to avoid frying puris into pappadams and making chapaties like Picasso creations, I went to being the most sought-after cook among the 3 ladies in the house when it came to ..lets call it...interesting(!?) cooking.

Apart from becoming a regular surfer of food blog sites, I discovered a new passion. TV Cookery shows!. I never knew they could be so interesting till recently. I no longer needed to see Brad Pitts or George Clooneys or Hrithiks. Iam now the die-hard fan of the Nigellas, Kylie Kwongs, Anjum Anands and Damus.

What transformed me? My husband's agony with my cooking.
Every puri I made he had to look out for a tool to dismember it.. every chapati increased his knowledge of the shape of our continents, every dosa made him long for his mom's dosas..

And then it dawned on me that I have to Save his Soul and take cooking seriously.
Iam still not very confident when it comes to our daily sambars, theeyals and thorans. But I have progressed enough to make the best rasams, dosas, chutneys and chicken curries in the house. I have successfully prepared almost a dozen or more of different chicken dishes on Sundays.

I get my best compliment when my hubby tastes my chicken and says.. "I can give you a 6 on 10 for that." That is definitely a big achievement for me considering that my dad might have marked a negative 60 for my first upuma.